Day 2557

Sometimes it's embarrassing to explain how I spend my day. Even the big events can be kind of trivial. Spelling errors always bother me. Especially when I make them myself. This morning I noticed a glaring spelling error in yesterday's blog post and I wasted hours trying to correct it. You'd think it would be easy to just correct the error and update the blog. Well, nothing is easy with me. Every time I publish a post, it is time stamped and syndicated to my various social media accounts. Correcting the blog itself would not correct the way it looks on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else. I had to figure out a way to erase all those links and then publish a new version with yesterday evening's date. Heaven forbid that it looked like I skipped a day. Does any of this even matter? Of course not. Does it matter to me. Apparently so. I finally got everything looking exactly the way it should and now the unfortunate spelling error never even existed. Morning wasted.

I've definitely got a cold now.  Once you catch a cold there isn't a lot you can do. There are hundreds of cold remedies on the market, but I find that very few of them help at all. You've just got to let the cold run its course. A lot of people take antihistamines, but I hate the way they make me feel. My head feels like it is going to explode after I've taken antihistamine pills. Cough drops provide mild relief from a sore throat, but if the sore throat is bad, you can go through a bag of cough drops in a day. That's a lot of sugar and menthol. I don't have a fever, so I'm hoping this cold won't be too bad. The weather certainly isn't helping. It was nasty again today.

I got a package from B&H this morning. Last week I'd ordered two small items that could have easily fit in the same envelope. Only one of the items arrived. The other is being shipped separately and apparently I have to sign for it. Why? It would have been so easy to dump both items in the same envelope. Since I hate waiting around all day for the UPS guy, now I've got to drive down to the UPS service center and pick up the shipment myself. UPS drivers rarely leave packages at the front door anymore, since there are people who follow the brown trucks around and then steal the packages. I'll be glad when Amazon perfects drone delivery. Maybe they can use military grade drones and just shoot the package thieves. I don't think anyone would mind.

I thought I'd have Pad Thai for dinner tonight. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I had enough reward points at Pei Wei to get a free meal. When I went to pick up my dinner, I discovered that my points had expired. Damn. I must have looked really disappointed because the guy at the register looked up my account on the computer and told me he'd give me the Pad Thai for free anyway because my points had only expired a few days ago. What a nice surprise. For a few short moments I felt like humanity wasn't doomed after all.

Dot had lots of accidents today. I always thought that poop was the big problem, but now I'm discovering that pee is actually harder to clean up. When Dot pees inside, it soaks through everything it touches almost instantly. I did a lot of laundry today and spent some time scrubbing the floor as well. I'm hoping that Dot's oncologist can give me some advice on controlling incontinence when we go for our cancer recheck on Friday.

Maybe a good night's sleep will conquer this cold. It's not very likely, but I can always hope.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2305

I wonder if everybody has a section  of their yard that is completely useless. Ours is a narrow corridor connecting the front and back yard on the Eastern side of the house. The neighbors have erected a tall wood fence on the property line that totally blocks the view and turns the area into a dark, useless area where leaves accumulate in the winter and spider webs cover the windows in the Summer. The area is fenced off so the dogs can't escape and I rarely go there. Occasionally I have to clean the windows though and today seemed like a good day. It took several hours to clear away the spider webs with a broom, but at least this loathsome task is out of the way for another six months. The little side yard is still useless, but the windows don't look quite as disgusting now.

After lunch, I took my pitiful birthday card to the post office and picked up some Pad Thai for dinner on the way home. I've completely lost interest in cooking lately. Hopefully, this is temporary, since cooking used to be a good way to occupy my time on slow days like today. Now, my time is occupied by taking care of Dot.

I know I'm losing readers by talking about poop all the time, but it often seems like cleaning up Dot's accidents is all I do. She made a huge mess in her bed last night and I had to get up at 2 AM and clean her up. She pooped again while she was eating breakfast in the kitchen and a third time while I went to the post office. I give her plenty of opportunities to go outside, but often she just wanders around smelling things while I follow behind, holding up her rear legs. It's frustrating. After wandering around aimlessly in the yard for twenty minutes, she'll come back inside, go to her bed, and poop in her sleep an hour later. I can't imagine being a nurse in an assisted living facility, because they probably have to deal with the same issues with old people day after day. There's nothing glamorous about incontinence whatsoever.

There were a few website updates on the schedule today, but nothing that kept me occupied for very long. I've really got to rethink my employment prospects. Most of my best clients have retired or died. What happens now? I guess I'm semi-retired myself, but I hate to admit it. I was really happier when I was busy every day and felt like I was on the cutting edge. I'll have to admit that growing old gracefully is a lot more difficult than I imagined.

Tomorrow is kind of a space geek day. In lieu of actually being there, I'll watch the live streaming video of the Space X Dragon launch on my computer. Maybe this time they'll be successful at landing the booster on their drone ship at sea. Weather permitting, tomorrow evening should be a good opportunity to see the planet Mercury right after sunset. Since the planet is located right next to a new crescent moon, it should be easy to find. Of course, there's a brand new restaurant to look forward to tomorrow as well. It ought to be a good day.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2277

I think I've entered my own private version of the Twilight Zone. I don't know how long you can spend endlessly cleaning up dog poop in the house, removing water from a flat roof, watching the political circus on cable news, and checking your Facebook feed for obituary notices before you go stark raving mad. The high point of my day is deciding what to eat. The meal itself is usually an afterthought, but the anticipation of eating is still kind of nice.

There were multiple accidents to clean up today. I'm amazed at how well the washing machine is working, since its been getting quite a workout this year. Dot is starting to feel the Palladia pills she took on Wednesday. It takes 24 to 36 hours before I notice any difference. Typically, she starts to become more tired than usual about 24 hours after she takes the pills and then starts to recover again on the day she is due for another pill. The new schedule gives her two days to recover between each chemotherapy treatment and it appears to be working. I hope the Palladia pills are actually doing what they are supposed to do, because I hate to see Dot have a bad day.

I got my March invoices out today. It didn't take long, because there aren't many to send out anymore. Since there wasn't much food in the refrigerator, I thought I'd pick up some Chinese take out on the way home from the post office. I found a nearby Pei Wei where I could order online and ended up getting the Pad Thai I was hungry for yesterday. It wasn't the best Pad Thai I've ever eaten, but it was fresh and reasonably priced. It certainly beat having a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. I've become a fan of ordering take-out online and picking up the meal while I'm running errands in the neighborhood. If you pick the right restaurant, there is virtually no waiting. I'll probably go to this Pei Wei again. It seems a little healthier than the bacon cheeseburger I usually pick up when the refrigerator looks empty.

I was really hoping that the rain might end today, but the forecast shows that there will be more thunderstorms tomorrow and Saturday. I try to take a picture of something interesting every day, and I will admit that the rain creates interesting droplet patterns on plants. That's about all it's good for in my opinion. Rain also means wiping the dogs paws and cleaning my boots every time I come inside. It means an influx of cockroaches trying to get into the house. It means a dirty car. It means the dehumidifier has to work harder. And of course it means six inches of standing water on the roof. I hope my regular readers will bear with me. You've probably been listening to my rain rants every Spring for many years now.

The trash has been taken out to the curb. The wet clothes are all dry again. The dogs have had their evening meds and been outside to pee one last time before going to bed. All I have to do is brush my teeth and this day is over.

Ely is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2276

We survived the rain. I didn't get much sleep last night, because every time there was a thunderclap, one of the dogs would wake up in a panic and start barking. Every time Dot barked, I kept thinking she was going to poop, but she didn't. There is no predicting these things anymore. Both dogs wisely chose to forgo their morning walk when it began raining even harder at daybreak. I thought Dash was going to explode, but after seven or eight trips to the back door, he finally decided that it wouldn't kill him to poop in the yard. With all this going on, breakfast took a little longer than usual. That was fine with me. There wasn't much else to do anyway.

When I turned on the pump this morning, it wasn't working. Against my better judgement, I climbed up on the roof to investigate and discovered that it had become clogged with debris falling from the trees. up. It's that time of year again. Oak trees flower in the Spring right before the leaves start to form. The small flowers, called catkins, are arranged in long drooping spirals that quickly fall off the tree and land on the roof. They are just the right size to totally clog the sump pump. I've burned up several pumps this way. At any rate, I cleaned the gunk out of the pump, got it working again, and since the rain had temporarily stopped, decided to stay on the roof and clear away the remaining water myself. It was a fairly futile gesture, since the rain started again almost as soon as I was finished, but it beat sitting inside and listening to the dehumidifier.

Dot had a good day at her physical therapy session. Maybe she had more energy today, since we didn't take a morning walk. After last week's disappointing performance, I was worried that the cumulative effect of the Paladia pills was making Dot too weak for her water therapy exercises, but she was fine this week. She did poop in the lobby as soon as we arrived at the vet, but that was a huge improvement over pooping in my car like she did last week. It was still raining when we returned home, but luckily the traffic wasn't bad today. Just about every aspect of today involved getting wet.

I'm getting bored with my diet again. I wish it wasn't so much trouble to cook Chinese or Thai food, because I'm getting hungry for Pad Thai. Unfortunately, it's way too much trouble to assemble all the ingredients for a quick dinner for one. I tried to make this dish a long time ago and quickly discovered that mixing together tamarind paste, fish sauce, rice noodles, bean sprouts, eggs, chiles, green onions, sliced pork, peanuts, and sundry other ingredients was way out of my league. It is much easier to just make a cheeseburger.

Maybe I'll have a cheeseburger tomorrow. I need to get my March invoices out and get started on my taxes. I need to do a lot of things, but if it keeps raining I'm just going to be cleaning up wet dogs.

Val is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day